Dolls and Dresses
by stardust rain
Summary: Eiri's toys are broken and their paint is chipped. Dust gathers slowly on top of the shelf. Spoilers, shounen-ai


Warning: shounen-ai, spoilers.

Summary: Eiri's toys are broken and their paint is chipped. The dust slowly gathers on top of the shelf. Spoilers for the 8th manga.

AN: in the 8th volume, Eiri describes the relation he has with Tohma, what he sees it as (pages152-153) and how he had always "had to find new toys". This is my take on Eiri's feelings and thoughts on Shuichi and his past relationships.

**Dolls and Dresses**

Her face was made of powder-white china, smooth and cold, sky-blue glass eyes and soft blonde curls that fell down to her shoulders. The dress was made of silk, red and pink and white, with lace edges and flowers, an English Victorian dress for a lady. There was a smile carved into her face too, and lips dyed blood red. She pretty, pretty but forbidden, on top of the shelf where he couldn't reach.

"Boys don't play with dolls," Seguchi said. "That's why I'm putting her away."

Eiri was a greedy boy of forbidden treasures and many broken toys. His world is shaped by the quiet rooms and inaccessible things, perched on top of wobbly chairs and stools in hopeless attempts to reach his toys and his smile is full of bruises from falls and bumps that showed his failure. After many efforts, he turns to his cars with their paint chipped, the puzzles with their missing pieces, kites and plastic aeroplanes with their lustre gone. They were all slightly broken and slightly old, but they had to do for now. Until they faded away one day, gathering dust on top of the shelf, each time with a new explanation from Seguchi.

But then Kitazawa comes, with his warm smiles and kind eyes, and the knot in his stomach loosens a little. His paint is chipped and faded, smudged by someone else's fingers and someone else's hands, though he doesn't care much. But he finds himself in a dark apartment one afternoon, blood on the floor and a gun in his hands, dead bodies around him and Kitazawa lying in a pool of scarlet. He realizes that like everyone and everything else, Kitazawa had faded away. He sheds off his old self like snakeskin, leaving it behind in that cold, musty room, draping a blanket of ice across his shoulders instead. He starts a new life, a new chapter.

The early sun creeps along the wall, finding him in empty rooms and hollow silences, a cigarette light burning out in minutes. His blonde hair a mess, stubble on his chin, bed unmade and clothes on the floor, the black crescents under his eyes darkening. He wakes everyday with a new toy. Each morning a different face, a different scent of perfume and by night it's someone else's body, someone else's scent and someone else's skin against his. The cycle continues; it was his time his and his space after all, with the little boy blue abandoned in that dark flat. Like the many toys Eiri has, they were all smudged and worn out, with the scars and marks of their previous owner.

But then Shuichi comes and everything changes. The many arguments and the sleepless nights don't matter because he counts every kiss and every gesture, and suddenly the tension between them loosened. Like the first rain after a bitter, hollow winter, he starts a new chapter. Shuichi is different from everything else he's played with; there was a smell of new plastic and dye clinging on him, and there are no blemishes on his paint. But he finds himself in the hospital one afternoon, tubes in his arms, white sheets on his bed, and everything spirals down a black hole. Then he wakes up one morning and the space beside him is empty for the first time in months. It was a strange feeling, like ice seeping through the cracks in the glass and windows, travelling up his veins and through his skin, and it slowly freezes him again.

It didn't last and it shouldn't have lasted. All the attempts to protect him, all the attempts to leave, the bitter words to drive him away, it didn't save him in the end. After all the fruitless attempts Seguchi has put another toy away, gathering dust on top of the shelf. Like everything he had had, the only thing he wanted was forbidden. He turns to his broken toys, with their paint smudged by someone else's fingers and pieces lost by someone else's carelessness. They would have to do for now.

There are things in his day he just doesn't notice, like the smudges and chipped paint they pass by unseen, his time and space trickling like water through ghost fingers. The few seconds when he expects the door to slam and footsteps in the hall, the small moments of tension that wishes for Bad Luck on the radio, the flicker of hope of seeing Shuichi's face in a magazine, only to find an empty room, the wrong song and a blank page, expectation turning into nothing.

The seconds and minutes stops ticking, his life is put on pause.

Eiri is greedy boy of forbidden treasures and many broken toys. With his pink paint chipped and pieces missing, the cheap colour smudged by his own fingers and his own hands, Shuichi had been put away, gathering dust on top of the shelf.

--Owari--

AN: When I was reading the manga, the conversations between Tohma and Shuichi (p. 25) and the part where Yuki again and the part where Mika says, "You love the little shrimp. You really, really love him" (p. 254) gave me a lot of inspiration. I've wanted to do a Gravi fic for ages, and that seemed really fitting. After finally busting my writer's block, this is the first fic that I've sat down and spent time on.

Review!


End file.
